CHAPTER II
A BINDING OATH

The return of these men, if indeed they were responsible for the condition of the man upstairs, might augur further evil for him. They had perchance returned along the road to make certain that their work was complete, and, finding their victim gone, were now in search of him. Exactly what reliance was to be placed on the word of the wounded man, Barrington had not yet determined. He might be a contemptible spy, his message might contain hidden information to the enemies of his country; he was certainly carrying it to aristocrats who were safe across the frontier, and he might fully deserve all the punishment which had been meted out to him, but for the moment he was unable to raise a hand in his own defense and his helplessness appealed to Barrington. These men should not have their will of him if he could prevent it.

"Keep out of the way of being questioned," he whispered to the landlord, as they went down the stairs. It was characteristic of Richard Barrington that he had formed no plan when he entered the room. He believed that actions must always be controlled by the circumstances of the moment, that it was generally essential to see one's enemy before deciding how to outwit him, a false theory perhaps, but, given a strong personality, one which is often successful.

"Good evening, gentlemen! My friend and I are not the only late travelers to-night."

The two men looked sharply at him. Their attention had been keenly, though furtively, concentrated upon Seth, who sat in a corner, apparently half asleep. In fact, having just noticed them, he had closed his eyes as though he were too weary and worn out to talk.

Both men curtly acknowledged Barrington's greeting, hardly conscious of the curtness maybe. They were of the people, their natural roughness turned to a sort of insolent swagger by reason of the authority which had been thrust upon them. They were armed, blatantly so, and displayed the tri-colored cockade. In some society, at any rate, they were of importance, and this stranger and the manner of his greeting puzzled them. He spoke like an aristocrat, yet there was something unfamiliar about him.

"Did you have to batter at the door before you could gain admittance?" asked one. Of the two, he seemed to have the greater authority.

"No, we arrived before the door was closed."

"Closed doors are suspicious," the man returned with an oath. "This is the day of open doors and freedom for all, citizen."

"Liberty, equality, and fraternity," Barrington answered. "It is a good motto. One that men may well fight for."

"Do you fight for it?" asked the man, truculently.

"Not yet," said Barrington, very quietly and perfectly unmoved, apparently seeing nothing unusual in the man's manner or his question, but quite conscious that Seth had sleepily let his hand slip into his pocket and kept it there.

"Late travelers on the road are also suspicious," said the man, stepping a little nearer to Barrington.

"Indeed! Tell me, of what are you afraid? My friend and I are armed, as I see you are. We may join forces against a common danger. Four resolute men are not easily to be played with."

"Aristocrats find it convenient to travel at night, and tricked out just as you are," he said. "I have taken part in stopping many of them."

"Doubtless an excellent and useful occupation," Barrington returned.

"And I have heard many of them talk like that," said the man, "an attempt to throw dust into eyes far too sharp to be blinded by it. You will tell me where you travel to and where from."

"Do you ask out of courteous curiosity, as meeting travelers may do, or for some other reason?"

"You may think whichever pleases you."

"I am not making for the frontier, if that is what you want to know," laughed Barrington.

"I asked a question which it will be well for you to answer," said the man, and it was evident that his companion was also on the alert.

"Have you authority to question me?" Barrington asked.

"Papers here," said the man, touching his coat, "and this." His hand fell upon a pistol in his belt.

"Leave it there. It is the safest place."

Seth's hands had come from his pocket with a pistol in it. Barrington still laughed.

"My friend seems as suspicious as you are. Let me end it, for truly I expected to be drinking with you before this, instead of trying to find a cause for quarrel. Your eyes must be sharp indeed if you can discover an aristocrat in me. I was for freedom and the people before you had struck a blow for the cause here in France. We are from the coast, before that from America, and we journey to Paris to offer our services to the Marquis de Lafayette."

Perhaps the man believed him, perhaps he did not, but the result of an appeal to force was doubtful, and wine was an attraction. He held out his hand with an air that the welcome of France was in the action. For the present they could pose as friends, whatever might chance in the future.

"Sieur Motier the Marquis is now called, but in America that name would not appeal. We may drown our mistake in wine, the first but maybe not the last time we shall drink together."

The landlord brought in the wine and departed without being questioned.

"Sieur Motier," said Barrington, reflectively. "News has traveled slowly to us in Virginia, and things here have moved quickly. You can tell me much. This meeting is a fortunate one for me."

Into weeks and months had been crowded the ordinary work of a long period of time. After nearly three years of strenuous effort, the Constituent Assembly had come to an end. With Mirabeau as its master spirit, it had done much, some evil, but a great deal that was good. It had suppressed torture, done away with secret letters, and lightened the burden of many grievous taxes. Now, the one man who was able to deal with the crisis if any man was, the aristocrat who had become the darling of the rabble, the "little mother" of the fisher-wives, the hope of even the King himself, was silent. Mirabeau was dead. In fear the King had fled from Paris only to be stopped at Varennes and brought back ignominiously to the capital. The Legislative Assembly took the place of the Constituent Assembly, three parties in it struggling fiercely for the mastery, one party, that high-seated crowd called the Mountain, red republicans whose cry was ever "No King," growing stronger day by day. Nations in arms were gathering on the frontiers of France, and the savagery of the populace was let loose. The Tuileries had been stormed, the Swiss Guard butchered, the royal family imprisoned in the Temple. Quickly the Legislative Assembly had given way to a National Convention, and the country was ripe for any and every atrocity the mind of man could conceive.

The patriot, sitting opposite to Barrington and drinking wine at intervals, told his tale with enthusiasm and with many comments of his own. He was full of the tenets of the Jacobin and Cordelian Clubs. For him the world, set spinning on a mad career when the Bastille fell, was moving too slowly again. There had been a good beginning, truly something had been done since, but why not make a good end of it? Mirabeau, yes, he had done something, but the work had grown too large for him. He had died in good time before the people had become tired of him. France was for the people, and there must be death for all who stood in the people's way, and a quick death, too.

"Blood must run more freely, there will be no good end without that," he said; "the blood of all aristocrats, no matter what they promise, what they pretend. From the beginning they were liars. France has no use for them save to make carrion of."

"And whose power is sufficient for all this?" Barrington asked.

"To-day, no one's. To-morrow;—who shall say? Things go forward quickly at times. A sudden wave might even raise me to power."

"Then the good ending," said Barrington.

The man caught no irony, he only heard the flattery.

"Then the blood flowing," he laughed; "so, as full in color and as freely spilt," and he jerked the remains of the wine in his glass across the room, staining the opposite wall.

"And if not at your word, perhaps at that of Monsieur de Lafayette, Sieur Motier," Barrington suggested. He wanted the man to talk about the Marquis.

"He is an aristocrat with sympathies which make no appeal to me. The people have grown tired of him, too. I am honest, and fear no man, and I say that Motier has long been at the crossroads. He is, or was, an honest man, I hardly know which he is now, and even honest men must suffer for the cause. You say you are his friend, whisper that warning in his ear, if you see him; say you had it from Jacques Sabatier, he will have heard of me."

"Certainly, I will tell him," said Barrington, wondering if such a man as Lafayette could have heard of such a truculent scoundrel as this. "Is he in Paris?"

"I know nothing of him. He was with the army in the North, but he may have been recalled. He must obey like the rest of us. Do you ride with us to Paris to-night?"

"No. Our horses need rest, but we shall meet there, I hope."

"A true patriot must needs meet Sabatier in Paris," and the man swaggered out of the room, followed by his companion.

Barrington and Seth stood at the tavern door to watch their departure. It was not advisable that they should be alone with the landlord and have an opportunity of asking him questions.

The two men rode sharply through the village, but on the outskirts drew rein.

"Had you sharp enough eyes to discover anything?" Sabatier asked, turning to his companion.

"Nothing, except that one of them was too much like an aristocrat to please me."

"He comes to Paris, and may be dealt with there. What of Bruslart's messenger?"

"I saw no sign of him."

"Yet they journey from the coast and must have passed him on the road. He was beyond moving of his own accord."

"Do you mean they helped him?"

"Some one has. We were fools to allow ourselves to be disturbed before completing our work."

"Why did you not question the landlord or the men themselves?"

"Time enough for that," Sabatier answered. "Two men against two gives no odds to depend upon. Ride on toward Paris and send me back a dozen patriots, no matter where you find them. There are some in the neighborhood who have tasted blood in burning a château, whisper that there are aristocrats in Trémont. They shall find me by that farm yonder, snatching an hour's sleep in the straw maybe. Then get you to Villefort, where Mercier and Dubois are waiting. Bid them watch that road. Possibly the messenger was not so helpless as we imagined."

Jacques Sabatier did not move until the sound of his comrade's horse had died into silence, then he went toward the farm, tethered his horse, and threw himself down on the straw in a dilapidated barn. Sleep must be taken when it could be got. The days and nights were too full for settled times of rest. In his little sphere he was a man of consequence, not of such importance as he imagined, but, nevertheless, before his fellows. He had been at the storming of the Bastille, that gave him prestige; he had a truculent swagger which counted in these days, especially if there had been no opportunity of being proved a coward. Perchance Sabatier had never been put to the test. In a rabble it is easy to shout loudly, yet be where the danger is least, and this wide-mouthed patriot had much to say about himself.

His sleep was sound enough for the proverbial just man, sound and dreamless, aided perhaps by a liberal allowance of wine. At daybreak he was still slumbering, and the little crowd of men who presently found him in the barn had some trouble in rousing him. He struggled to his feet, his mind a blank for a moment.

"What is it? What do you want?" and for an instant there was a look in his eyes strangely like fear.

"You sent for us," said one.

"Ah! I remember." Sabatier was himself again. "There's work for us in the village yonder. Rats in a hole, comrades. We go to smoke them out."

A fierce undertone of approval was the answer.

So in the early morning there was once more a heavy battering at the closed door of the tavern, and shouting to the landlord to open quickly. He came shuffling down the stairs.

"It's over early for guests," he said sleepily, "but you're good men, I see. Come in."

Then he caught sight of Sabatier and trembled a little. He was an old man, and had been oppressed so long that he had become used to it. He understood very little of what was going forward in the country.

"Where are the aristocrats?" hissed a dozen raucous voices.

"Those guests of yours," said Sabatier.

"They have gone—went soon after you left last night. It was a surprise, but I had no power to stop them."

There was an angry movement toward the landlord.

"Wait," said Sabatier. "He is probably a liar. We shall see."

The men searched the house, some watching the doors lest the aristocrats should make a dash for freedom. Certainly there was a guest here still, but he made no effort to escape. At the top of the stairs was a door—locked.

"The key," Sabatier demanded.

"I will fetch it," was the timid answer.

The locked door was suspicious. Two men ran hastily to watch the window and prevent escape that way. And why delay for the key? Not a very strong lock this, a blow from a man's heel could break it, did break it, and the door crashed open, splitting itself from one of its hinges.

On the bed lay a man, half-dressed, his eyes wide open, fixed upon the ceiling, his head bound with a cloth, blood-stained. Very sunken was the head in the pillows, very thin looked the form stretched under the coarse blanket. Sabatier touched him and then looked swiftly round the room. A coat was thrown across a chair. He took this up, and there was a cut in the lining of it, high up near the collar.

"Who did this?" he asked.

The landlord did not know.

"Who did it, I say!" and he struck him in the face with the back of his hand, a heavy enough blow to send the old man to the wall.

"I do not know, sir, it's true I do not know," whined the landlord. "They brought him here half dead; had found him on the road, they said. He seemed to get better when one of them bound him up. When they came to look at him after you had gone he was dead. I left them alone with him, and in a few minutes they called me and said they must leave for Paris at once."

Sabatier flung the coat aside with an oath.

"This is Citizen Latour's business," he said to his companions.

"And he's been helping aristocrats," said one man, pointing to the landlord still leaning by the wall.

"What else?" said Sabatier, shortly, as he strode out of the room and down the stairs.

A cry followed him, but he did not stop.

"Mercy! I know nothing."

A wilder cry, half drowned by savage curses and the sound of blows. Still Sabatier paid no heed. He went into the room below, knocked the neck off a wine bottle and poured the contents into a mug and drank, smacking his lips.

A woman, half dressed, rushed down the stairs and into the street.

"Let her go," Sabatier cried, as a man was starting after her. "Maybe she's not too old to find another husband."

Laughing, and cursing, the men came tumbling down the stairs, ripe for deviltry; but for the moment here was wine to be had for the taking, everything else could wait.

When later they left, a woman came rushing toward them.

"Let me in! Let me in!" she cried. "He's not dead."

"Out of it," said one, pushing her roughly aside so that she stumbled and fell upon the road. "He's dead, or will be soon enough. Our work is thorough, and this might be a château instead of a wine shop by the way we've treated it. You watch a while. You'll understand," and he laughed as he closed the door.

The poor soul may have understood his meaning, or she may not, as she rocked herself to and fro in the roadway. The ribald songs of these patriots, these apostles of freedom, had not died as they marched and danced out of Trémont when there was a smell of burning in the air, and first smoke, then flame burst from the tavern, quickly reducing it to a heap of ashes. It was a strange grave for the charred remains of two men who yesterday had been full of life. This was a time when things moved apace and there was no prophesying from day to day.

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Long since out of range of the smoke cloud rising in the morning sky, Richard Barrington and Seth urged their horses along the road.

"Is this a wise journey?" Seth asked suddenly.

"I cannot tell."

"Paris might be safer."

"I promised to carry a message to a woman," Barrington answered. "The man is dead; there remains my oath. Somewhere before us lies the Château of Beauvais, and that is the way we go."

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